But First, the Fine Print

With Google being an Internet company, you can expect a few things to not quite work offline. Offline maps don’t give you the full Google Maps experience — you can’t look up directions, for example. It’s really more of an alternative to a paper map than a full offline version of Google Maps.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the details:

You can download as many offline maps as you like, depending on storage space available on your device.

Maps take anywhere from 3MB to 20MB, depending on the amount of detail required.

Maps last for 30 days; at that point you must refresh them.

Turn-by-turn directions and search do not work on these maps.

GPS does work, meaning you will be able to see your current location.

Got it? Then let’s get started!

How to Save an Offline Map

Open up Google Maps and head to the area you’d like to download. For this example, I’ll be downloading Singapore.

Once you’ve got Maps pointed to the area you’d like to download, hit the three-line menu button to the left of the words “Search Google Maps”. This will bring you to your settings.

If you’re not signed into Google Maps, make sure you do so. Once that’s done, hit the Your Places option.

At the top you’ll see your home and work addresses, along with any other you’ve told Google Maps to save. Scroll past these until you get to the Offline Places, as seen above. Tap the View All and Manage option.

From here you can tap the button at the bottom of the screen, Download a New Offline Area, to start the framing process.

For some reason, Google limits the size of offline maps, regardless of how much space you have available on your phone. Even worse, the limit is completely arbitrary: the biggest area you can save is 50 square kilometers (19 square miles).

So, assuming the area you want to download is too big for Google, you’re going to need to zoom out. When you do that, you’ll be told that you’re ready.

If the map is a little smaller than you were hoping for, know that you can start this process again to cover more ground.

When you’re satisfied with the area framed, go ahead and tap Download. Google will start the process and, if everything goes well, let you know when the map is ready for offline usage.

You’re done! You can now zoom into the downloaded area regardless of whether you’re online or not. The map will stay on your phone for up to 30 days, at which point you can re-download by heading to Offline Places and tapping the expired maps.

Edit: a reader on Reddit, username polux_elm, just pointed out a faster way to do this. Just head to the area you’d like to use offline in maps, then type “Okay maps” into the search bar. You’ll skip ahead to the part where you need to zoom to pick your offline map.

Potential Alternatives

As explained above, Google Maps does have certain limitations. There’s an arbitrary limit on the size of the individual maps you can download (though again, no limit on the number of maps you can download, so you could potentially work around this).

I have said it before - it is useless. You can download a large area like Paris, however it is just not accesible, neither the location working offline. It needs often sync online and offline maps like Here put it to shame.

The free version lets you download maps for 10 states free and paid allows unlimited downloads. It can display tracks and waypoints from gpx files (but not kml or kmz which is the default export from Google My Maps which has me wanting to also experiment with the more simplistic Maps.me you suggested). You can record tracks, create tracks and favorites, get voice directions offline along with turn by turn, you can download contours, display the speed limit, your speed, and get speed warnings if you like. There are a lot of settings and capabilities I haven't even fully explored. The only downside is that I find Open Street Maps, which this app naturally uses, to be slightly less dependable than Google Maps. But if you're offline it sure fills the gap.

I was having issues with Google Maps. It was just allowing to download to certain radius. Then I started using HERE app. Its nice app. You can download whole city or province if you are traveling to another city or Province download both and will give you accurate directions. even with 3D maps. I don't know any other app. But I like this one.

We have been using Google Maps as a way to get path from point A to Point B, and get a nice printout that we can use in the car. However, to see where we actually are, when we are unsure of the next turn or a missed point, we like using an offline mapping system. I used a third-party software so far, as we were always having issues with Google Maps. Sometime we would not get the possibility to download offline, sometime the downloaded portion would not properly show up, as if it was only partially downloaded. We use those mainly when going to some sport tournaments for our son, but also as a way to find ourselves when visiting others out of our town.

I use Sygic, which keeps all maps always offline, and updates when required from the server (not so frequently, actually). I had to use that, as I do not have any 3G/4G connection on my cell or tablet. This was before Google Maps actually had an offline option. But I still use Sygic, as it always gets me the maps, unless of course I did not update the databse for a too long period.

Justin Pot is a technology journalist based in Portland, Oregon. He loves technology, people and nature – and tries to enjoy all three whenever possible. You can chat with Justin on Twitter, right now.